A passionate fitness enthusiast shares insights from competing in bodybuilding shows and how the process drives personal growth. He discusses the importance of setting clear goals, using competitions as motivation, and learning from seasoned competitors. Listeners will gain valuable tips on preparation, posing routines, and the mindset needed to continuously improve in every aspect of fitness.

The balance between celebrating achievements and maintaining progress. With practical advice on setting fitness milestones and sustaining healthy habits, this episode offers a refreshing perspective on defining and achieving personal health and fitness goals.

Highlights of the Podcast

00:04 – Introduction to Questions & Bodybuilding Show

02:13 – Learning from Experienced Competitors

05:10 – The Art of Posing

07:07 – The Importance of Goal Setting in Fitness

09:57 – Balancing Rewards and Maintenance

11:18 – Defining Goals for Personal Health and Fitness

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:04] All right. So questions I’ve been getting a lot of questions from on this from and the emails, but people have been asking me in clinic. About the show this weekend. So this weekend, tomorrow, I’m doing Battle of Texas bodybuilding show contest to. Basically the whole reason that I do this is because we go over stuff like this and goals calls. I have to have a point at which I’m working towards. So like a lot of people will do. You know, there’s a wedding coming up or they’re going on vacation or Summer’s coming up or whatever. And so they want to, you know, work out real hard from point A to point B so they’re ready for this thing. And so the way I do it is I do shows. And so. The whole goal of me doing shows is that I want to be better than I was last time and definitely I’m there, so I’m excited about that.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:05] Next show is going to be more difficult than the show. After. I’ll be more difficult, but that’s kind of the idea. The so that’s why I do the shows because I want to, you know, set a time where get real hard, take a break, do it again. So in that case, yeah, that’s why I try to do them. This is one of those shows can be really cool because it’s going to be a pro qualifier show. So the guy at the competition is going to be there is, you know, the guys who were trying to win this contest become professional. So it’s a really, really high end competition. So it’s going to be really fun to be around those guys. See how long they’ve been doing it, stuff like that. So I’ve been doing this for like actually doing this for about a year. Some of these guys have been doing it for six, seven, eight, ten years. So it’s really cool to see their opposing routines and see kind of how they do it. Pick the little things up like peak week stuff I really love, Like I really love talking to the guys about what they do for peak week. Like, you know, when do you start carbon up? What do you eat? Where is it, you know, like, you know, where in the week do you start your carb cycle?

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:13] You know, when you quit doing these exercises, when you stop doing your, you know, your testosterone, like like all the little things that, you know, people get neurotic about, you know what? Like, I know guys who are really picky about their tan. I don’t care at all about my tan. I prefer to kind of get it like five minutes for a walk on stage because the stuff doesn’t do well with my skin. But many people are super picky about it. People have these really cool routines, how they warm up beforehand and the blood pumped back into the musculature so it looks as good as possible. There’s a lot of really cool things and I love kind of learning from these guys and talking to these guys who’ve been doing it for a long time. It’s funny because like you ask me like Q Club, you know, hey, tell me, tell me some things and I’ll give you some stuff. And you’re like, okay. And then you ask some questions and they’re like, and here’s more information. Here’s more and more because like, they’ve, they’ve literally forgotten more tips and tricks than, you know, than they can remember to tell you.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:11] So, yes, actually specifically ask them like, yeah, I remember that. Or like, hey this work these one guys did this stuff and this is how it works for them. So it’s really a cool learning experience when you go through these to see kind of, Hey, you know, this guy was in there more for Mazo Endo or for Mazo or whatever, you know, what did they have to do to get where they are? Like, what did you do? They run, you know, how much trouble do they have with that, you know, those type of things. So these are really fun for me from a learning aspect and from a nerd aspect. But yeah, so we should be we’re hopefully we’ll be a lot better this year well, this time than we were in June. So I’m bigger. I feel like I look better. So I’m excited about it. And we’ll post the pictures and letters if you guys can kind of side of yourself. But yeah, so this is the second one of those things that I do for fun. That’ll be an interesting we’ll see because my guess is there’s going to be guys who go pro at this show and that’s to be a really cool experience to watch it like, right? Because like everybody’s kind of chasing that and the closer you get, the harder you chase it.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:04:14] And so watching these guys kind of achieve that, that goal is to be really fun too, because I know other guys who spend. Lots and lots of time and mental space and whatnot dedicated to thinking about and working on the Sabbath. Guys who, you know, have worked on their posing for hours and hours. Like, it’s funny because like I’ve, I’ve gotten opposing practice and stuff. I always feel bad telling people just my coach because I don’t want to be like, Look, I’m a really bad representation of what Jeff can do. I guess it’s not that he didn’t teach me, it’s that I didn’t. Student Right. Like I didn’t I didn’t practice nearly as much as I should have. And so I feel kind of bad. But like some of these guys, you know, we’ll spend hours and hours just working on how they’re standing and how they’re moving and the transition between one post and another one. It’s really, really cool. But that I kind of I like to put that in the dancing category because I can’t dance.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:05:10] But it’s it’s really cool watching these guys be really fluid with their movements and how are they transitions and how everything holds and then how they move from like, okay, I’ve gotten to the position and now I’m going to blow out of my air. I’m going to move in that total flex position. And the smoothness and how they transition is really kind of interesting. Like once, you know, like what’s actually going on when it’s not doesn’t just look like, you know, chaos or they’re just so they’re flexing like, well, you have the motions. The way they moved into that position, that way out of that, you know, whatever they’re doing, you know, that’s kind of an interesting piece of that. So the the building the body part is. Only like half of it because the how you position yourself, how you pose that type of thing, how you do your tan like how how you drink the water. The last couple of days of this thing is really, really, really a good, fun part of it. And you’ll see these guys get really, really, really dialed in. And it’s it’s fun to watch and learn. So that’s kind of why I look forward to them. So this one to be more of a drag.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:06:15] So the Cucolo is the way Cucolo was set up was, you know, I got everything I had to get done in like four hours. So showed up prejudging judging awards out in like four hours. And they do the women. This was going to take all day like I have to be there before six and I’m going to leave it like eight. So it’s a it’s an all long day thing. So. We’ll see how much I like that and how much the protest eats my skin. But that’s kind of where we’re at on that one. I’ll take pictures and stuff like that and bring it back and give you guys, you know, all sorts of fun stuff on it. But if you guys haven’t done if you haven’t found the thing that will help motivate you to get you from point A to point B, I would think about it like the shows I do for me. Yeah. If you’re like, Hey, I’m going to set up a vacation to Mexico, right?

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:07:07] And, you know, three, four, five, six months and I’m gonna work out real hard. So I look really good on the beach, right? Do it. Do a diet. You know, tone your, like, plan your diet out. Know get really tight on your diet. Get really tight on your workout. You really tighten your sleeve like really work on your body for a couple of months, then go on vacation and take pictures. And then, you know, the nice thing would be like, okay, now I’m going to set another vacation. I’m not just going to go back and get, you know, old diet, good fat again, you know, unhealthy. But, you know, if you guys will start thinking about those sort of things, some of you guys will it’ll help out quite a bit like setting a date of, you know, I’m going to do this thing by here for these reasons and then, you know, get with a trainer and knock it out. Like just kind of work it through. You don’t have to do shows. You don’t have to go on vacations. You don’t have to do those sort of things, you know.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:07:54] High school reunions are great ones, great reasons to get in shape or just because, you know, hey, I want to be I want to start getting healthier. Great. Set deadlines, set dates. I want X amount of things by this date. Because what happens is that means that you’re going to have to start tracking your metrics like, hey, I want to get I want to lose as much fat. I want to gain this much muscle by this date. All right, cool. So you track that. Am I building muscle at the right pace? Am I losing faith? Right pace? You know, because if you are great, stay the course if you’re not nagging back. Okay. Maybe I should work out, you know, a little bit longer. Maybe I should, you know, check my diet a little bit, and I should, you know, check my hormone functional that, you know, if I’m trying to build or cut. Okay. You know, hey, I’m not I’m not cutting as fast. I’d like to. Maybe I get a little tighter on my diet or, you know, maybe I start fasting or the the harder of those options is maybe I start doing a little bit more cardio or working out a little harder, you know, because those are the those are the things.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:08:55] But if your set dates me like, okay, between today and three, six months, whatever, where your date calendar is between here and there, I want to do these things and this is the way I’m going to do those things from a health perspective. Knock it out. Because here’s the other fun thing you’re going to ask me, like, Well, what are you going to do afterwards? I am going to come home and eat a pizza. Akita Pizza. I mean, have some pita pecan pie. I’m going to have some keto ice cream. Like, like I’m not going off necessarily the diet. I’m just gonna have a lot of things. And then for like the next couple of days, I’ll be, you know, as many cookies as I want. And, you know, like until I’m uncomfortably full type of thing. And then I’ll probably, you know, come back. So I’m going to keep working out. I’ll probably just, you know, work out lighter and less for a week or two. I’m just gonna let everything rest and then I’ll be back at it because, you know, I’m. I want to be better six months from now than I am right now, so I’m not going to push myself down the hole too hard. But, you know, there’s a lot of times where you can set up for, here’s the day, Great. You know, you’ve done all these things.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:09:57] Now let’s see how many of those you can maintain. Because, you know, if you set in, like I said, vacations and other vacation and just kind of start working on those things because you’ve already gotten used to them, you might they might get you a little dull and old, but, you know, you’ve already started going to the gym. You’ve already started working on your diet. You already know the things that now are working. Now you can start kind of tweaking those things to make them a little bit more beneficial, opening up maybe a little bit. And that’s how you do maintenance, because if you’re if you’re on a tight diet that you still like and it’s drawing you down, fat wise, is building you up muscle wise, well then you can once you get to a point where you’re like, okay, this is where I want to be. You don’t have to lose as much fat or gain as much muscle. And so you can start opening your diet up a little bit and making it a little lighter if you want. I probably won’t be that far off my diet now.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:10:45] You know, in my maintenance piece, like I can’t think of a whole lot of things me eating that I don’t eat right now besides maybe a little bit extra dessert stuff. So, you know, that’s the that would be the thing. So if you will set days out like, hey, you know, six months from now or whatever, I want to be X, Y, Z, right? And that’s what we do. A lot of times all our goals cause us to be like, What is healthy to you? Where do you want to go? What is it important to you? Right. So like, where’s the energy that what does having high energy mean to you? What is having a high sex drive mean to you?

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:11:18] You know, what is being strong mean to you Like what? What Where are you trying to go? If we can the better we can define that where we’re trying to get to, the better we can plan between point A and point B. So, you know, that’s kind of one of those big things of, you know, if we can sit down and go set this out, it’ll work really well. So so that’s kind of what we’re going on with the bodybuilding thing this weekend and, you know, really goal setting stuff. So if you guys have any other questions, drop them in the comments or I’m sure I’ll talk to you in class. So. All right, guys, we’re going. Thanks for your time.

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Dr. Matt Chalmers

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